Bank Ready To Offer Shariah Products

Standard Chartered is studying the prospects of offering Shariah-based banking products in Qatar.

Standard Chartered chief executive officer (Qatar & North Africa) Tom Aaker said the bank believed there was an opportunity for Islamic banking in the country. Standard Chartered cannot ignore Islamic banking if it maintains the same pace of growth.

“We have a dedicated Islamic bank - Standard Chartered Saadiq - based in Dubai. It has operations in many countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. But we have not yet introduced Standard Chartered Saadiq in Qatar and we don’t have the licence for that,” Aaker said.
But, he said, expanding Saadiq’s activities to Qatar was on the list of Standard Chartered’s strategic alternatives.

“It is definitely an option for us though we don’t know when we will pursue it,” he said.

Aaker said Standard Chartered was doing an analysis on the costs and benefits of offering Saadiq products and services in Qatar.

“It entails huge investment because it has to be managed separately as per regulations,” Aaker said.
Aaker said Standard Chartered, which completes 60 years of operations in Qatar in 2010, is designing products targeted at both corporate and retail customers.

These products will help corporate and institutional customers’ hedge risks - be they due to commodity price, interest rate or foreign exchange variation.
Since Qatar’s economy depended a lot on the prices of oil, gas and other commodities, hedging risks is quite important, Aaker said.

“We have an efficient relationship team based here in Doha and a team of experts at our dealing room in Dubai, which is the largest in the Middle East. Our sprawling network helps us provide value-added advisory service to our corporate customers,” Aaker said.

He said Standard Chartered had no immediate plans to sell mortgage products in Qatar.
“The real estate sector is going through a correction. The prices have dropped significantly. We don’t think it is the right time to get in. But we will closely monitor the situation and see what time we can launch mortgage products here. However, I cannot give you a timeframe,” Aaker said.

Aaker said he remained bullish about Qatar. “Our researchers have already said Qatar will be the best performing GCC economy in 2009 because of its strong fundamentals. Qatar’s real economic growth will be the fastest in the Gulf region at 8.5% this year, the highest in the world. The GDP growth is so fast that it can definitely sustain the number of banks we have in the country already. I don’t think Qatar’s banking market is overcrowded,” Aaker said.

From Gulf Times Qatar